Excellent post Jen I agree with everything completely. I've worked in an ELC (Early Learning Centre) we catered for children from 0-4. The first thing I would suggest is to use your intuition as to the staff morale. Your child will not care if the surroundings are beautiful with all brand new equipment as much as he/she will care about the type of people that are caring for her. If they seem snappy and impatient then beware. Also, sorry if this seems 'age-ist' but IMO it's good to have a balance of older carers to young girls fresh out of TAFE. If a centre is run and staffed by all young girls who have not had children of their own I personally would not feel comfortable... but that is just a personal preference of mine.